A business network may include large number of storage objects, such as multiple disk arrays, network-attached storage (NAS) devices, and the like. Moreover, a large network may contain thousands of storage devices. To provide a client system access to the storage network, the storage network may be represented graphically to the client system in the form of a hierarchical tree of folders and subfolders. The client system may view, navigate, and manage all of the folders and files included in the tree.
Typically, an image of the network will be created and maintained by a central server that acquires information from each storage device in the network. The server aggregates all of the storage devices in the network into a single tree model representing the entire network. Maintaining the tree model for the entire network may use significant processing resources.